


Before I Sleep

by cloverfield



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: 2nd person POV, KuroFai Event, M/M, Pre-Slash, Violence, mid-series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-16
Updated: 2014-08-16
Packaged: 2018-02-13 09:39:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2145960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloverfield/pseuds/cloverfield
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It startles him into a shout as he lurches into awareness, breathing heavy and heart racing. He does not know where he is. He does not know where he is. And he is not alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before I Sleep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [busyoldfool](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=busyoldfool).



> This fic was written for the 2014 'Secret Mokona' Gift Exchange over on the dw KuroFai comm, slated to happen before the release of Tsubasa World Chronicle. Each of us provided a list of likes and dislikes, and three wishes apiece, and were assigned a giftee in return.
> 
> This was written for busyoldfool, for their second wish; I promptly did terrible things to it in the name of fiction. Please forgive me. (Details of the specifics are in the end notes, along with a few clarifications.)

_the woods are lovely, dark and deep,_

_but I have promises to keep,_

_and miles to go before I sleep,_

_and miles to go before I sleep._

_\- Robert Frost_

 

* * *

_in your dreams, you are running._

* * *

“Wake up,” someone says, and the words hit Fai like the water does, crashing cold and uncaring over his head. The splash of it startles him into a shout as he lurches into awareness, breathing heavy and heart racing. He does not know where he is. He does not know where he is. And he is not alone.

“You’re not dead. Good,” says the voice again, moving around behind him; the fine hair on the nape of Fai’s neck _crawls_ , landscape blurring ( _trees dark bright-flicker trees trees trees_ ) as he whips about, tangled hair slapping his cheek in wet locks, and the dim of his surrounds swims before his eyes as they struggle to focus. His head is _aching_ , spinning, and for a moment there is nothing but black as he struggles to blink away the blur and focus once more. When he can see, it’s not to see much- just the man, and the fire, and the shadows of the trees behind him.

“Hey,” says the man, crouching down with a water-skin held loose in one slack hand. Around his shoulders, a cloak swings in heavy, dark folds. “Easy,” he murmurs, voice a low rumble- the kind of sound one makes to soothe, to reassure when one is not very good at either. It almost works, for a moment; this man before him has done him no harm, has had ample opportunity already if he found Fai sleeping, and yet the only blow he has been dealt was the water sloshed into his face. But then the man stands, moves closer to the fireside, the night’s dark receding beneath that bright glow, and the eyes that meet his own are hot and red and knowing enough to punch the breath from his chest.

This face is the same as the one Fai knows. The length of his nose, the arch of his brows, the shape of his mouth; even the way his nostrils flare minutely as he inhales sharply is familiar, and the gleam of teeth beneath the curl of his lip even more so. But the way these features are worn is ill-fitting, not _right_ ; as though this man before him were the mere shadow of the one that Fai has come to ( _despair of; dread his plans for;_ _~~desire~~_ ) know, as though this face was just a mask and the soul beneath nothing compared to the man whom Fai had mistaken him for. It is... wrong, to see the mirror of the man stand before him, wrong in a way that he can’t describe, not truly; can only feel in the sick swoop of his stomach. His head is pounding.

“Easy,” he says again, this man who is unknown for all that he is recognisable, and dark hair shifts a little across a familiar brow, loose strands falling across that burning gaze in much the same way they always have on this face. “Easy,” says Not-Kurogane for the third time, and now his hands rise, broad and flat and open-palmed, water-skin forgotten at his feet. A show of good intentions, meant to inspire trust- Fai has done the same himself so many times before.

( _and never has it worked_ )       

“Where is this?” is what Fai says, _rasps_ , keeping his voice level despite the burn of a dry throat and his features as calm and blank as he can make them; for all their differences, if this Kurogane is anything like the Kurogane he knows, a mere _smile_ won’t do him much good.

“Forest,” grunts his... rescuer? He’s most likely to thank for something, if the dull, throbbing ache that makes itself known at the back of Fai’s skull is anything to go by. _Must have hit my head. Did we fall?_ Considering that his companions are not in sight and his mouth tastes of cotton, it’s probably been sometime since his landing in this world _._ “Nowhere in particular,” continues Not-Kurogane, keeping his gaze firmly locked with Fai’s own. It’s hard to bear up under those eyes ( _red and sharp, cutting cutting cutting where they fall_) but it’s harder to look away. “There’s a town twenty leagues north, but around here nothing but deserted villages.”

“Deserted?”

Not-Kurogane barks a laugh. “Deserted,” he repeats, voice gravelly with something Fai can’t quite understand. “The forest is dangerous this time of year.”

_When are forests not?_ is what Fai wants to say, a joke to ease the tension -and not a very good one at that- but the words stick in his throat, and he cannot coax them free. “Thank you for saving me,” he manages eventually, voice barely loud enough to hear of the fire’s crackling, and Not-Kurogane’s face shifts a little, lips twisting in what could generously be called a smile. It shows too much teeth.

“Don’t thank me, traveller. You’re not out of the woods yet.” Fai blinks as something is suddenly flicked towards his face, the movement too fast to see; pain spikes in his skull and his hands snatch it out of the air before his eyes can focus on it, his fingers closing about well-worn leather. “Drink that,” says this Kurogane, and Fai’s grip tightens on the water-skin he didn’t even see picked up to be thrown. “Stay awake for a while if you can- if you’ve a taken a blow to the head, you shouldn’t sleep straight away.”

Fai has had concussions before, had broken bones and all manner of wounds besides, his fingers thick with scars and his nails scraped broken and bloody down to the bone beneath. So it’s not the advice that startles him -only practical considering the bump knotted and tender beneath his hair- it’s the manner in which it’s delivered, the same brisk practicality with which an ankle was wrapped in stiff bandages and assessed for injury almost a year ago. The injury had not been real, of course; Outo a world of illusion born entirely of technology and the programming of Edonis’ Fairy Park. But the pain had felt genuine, and the care which his companion had taken in binding it had been ( _unexpected_ ) appreciated all the same.

Not-Kurogane lowers himself to sit on the other side of the fire, pulling a dark cloak around his shoulders and tipping his head back against the tree behind him. Shadows move across his face from the flickering light rising from the flames. “You’re staring,” says the man before him, and smirks like Kurogane does when he has someone disarmed and vulnerable at his feet. “Keep your eyes in your own head, traveller, before you lose them.”

There is nothing Fai can say to that, so he tugs free the cap from the water-skin and takes a mouthful. When it hits his tongue, it’s as warm as blood.

* * *

_in your dreams, you are running-_

_-and you are being chased._

* * *

Fai wakes out of breath, and to the feeling he should not have been asleep in the first place. His head aches, heavy and hard to lift. He feels crumpled and bleary, the muscles of his back taut and folded into uncomfortable angles, and his neck aching. It’s not hard to figure out why: the roots of a tree do not a comfortable bed make, even with his coat -a relic from the world before this one, where winter had just begun- cushioning the cradle of gnarled wood he found himself asleep upon.

“Well, you didn’t die in the night, so you’re stronger than you look.”

Fai struggles to sit up, rubbing at gritty eyes with the heel of his palm, and when he blinks away the sleep-sand at the corners of his eyes it is to see his new companion seated across from the grey ashes of the fire from last night. “You’re not the first to say so,” he manages. “What would you have done if I had?” His attempt at humour falls far past the mark by his own standards. It’s not easy to be witty with only a few hours of restless sleep to one’s name, and even though there are no songbirds to herald the rising sun, the blue wash to the light betrays the earliness of the morning. It’s barely past dawn, or whatever passes for its equivalence in this world.

Not-Kurogane makes a huffed noise that suggests amusement. “Left your body for the birds.”

_What birds_ , Fai wants to say, because there are none; now that he is listening and at least halfway towards coherent, it’s to find not just songbirds missing from the silence around him. _No songbirds, no insects, no animals, small or otherwise- no wildlife of any kind._ But Not-Kurogane stands, looking far too composed for someone who slept just as rough as Fai did, and the words die unsaid. “Come on- get up. We’ve a long way to go today, and if you don’t keep up, it’s your fault and not mine.”

Bark bites into the palms of Fai’s hands as he pushes himself up, using the tree he leans against for leverage. “I’m coming with you?”                                                                                                                                                            

“You don’t have much choice,” comes the blunt response, the man before him rolling his shoulders and stretching with a pop and crackle of vertebrae, powerful muscle moving smoothly with each motion. “Your other option is to stay here and starve. You’ve no idea where you are, and no idea how to get back to where you came from.”

Discomforting as that statement is, it hits close to home, and Fai frowns down at his knees as he brushes leaves and grit from his fine woollen trousers. None of the clothes he wears now are fit for the woods -buttoned shirt, vest and coat; trousers and spats and short stockings beneath his boots- but without a means of acquiring new ones, they’ll have to do. At least his boots are supple for all they are second-hand, worn well to the contours of his feet and comfortable enough to walk for miles in. It goes without saying that he hopes not to have to travel that far.

Now that daylight is upon them -no matter how shaded by the leafy tops above him- Fai can see that this Kurogane looks more ready to travel, dressed to the part beneath his cloak in a hunter’s outfit that makes Fai think of the rangers they met in the bars and taverns of Jade: dark cloth rough-spun and sturdy, leather-patched at elbows and knees, with a jerkin of more leather besides; the garb of a man at home in the wild as much as he is beneath a roof, if not more so.

There is a bag, too, a rough sack of canvas held together with string; it is slung over one shoulder as Fai watches, clinking with the weight of something heavy inside it. “Come on,” says the man bearing it, and his cloak flutters about his legs a little as he walks away, leaving Fai to stagger to catch up.

And so they walk.

Hours pass, at least by Fai’s own count, and it’s on the tip of his tongue to ask for more -more information, more time, more of a reason as to where and why he is here- but if Fai has learned to use his words to suit his purpose ( _to lie to misdirect to sway with fake kindness ~~that he can’t help but really feel~~_ ) then he has also learned to use their absence, to let silence spin and grow and draw heavy with the weight of another’s assumptions. Except this too is a way in which this man is similar to the Kurogane he has left behind. The face this man wears does not quite suit, something uncanny in his bearing that Fai does not quite understand -how can a man not suit the face he was born to- but the quiet, _oh_ ; that he wears as comfortably as the cloak draped around broad shoulders, and it is unnerving to think that there are two souls in as many worlds who can see right through his words and to the scars beneath.

( _because those eyes see him, oh yes, see everything he is, and it is a small blessing -the only blessing he has left- that they do not see what he will become_ )

Not-Kurogane does not ask questions, does not answer them; the words choke unsaid in slow, staggered increments as time passes, half-thought and forgotten, and before long Fai’s thoughts have slowed to match the drudgery of his steps as he walks, mind drifting into wonder. He wonders where he is. He wonders where the others are, where the children might be and if they are safe, if ( _his_ ) Kurogane is there to keep them so. He wonders if Mokona is with them, and if they are close enough that the web of magic that the lovely little creature is the heart of has stretched far enough to encompass him in its protective benefits. Surely it must, for this Kurogane speaks words that he understands, and not the strange ( _and harsh and beautiful_ ) way the Kurogane Fai knows spoke in Yama. Surely.

His heart stutters a little, weak thing that it is, and Fai stops wondering.

Time passes. Of this he must be sure- but though the sunlight grows in brightness, spangled and smeared by shade and branches even so, he cannot see it approaching any zenith, or sliding down along any decline; he cannot feel the heat of the day rising as the sun does, or cooling as the evening approaches. If there _is_ time here -which there must be, there is time in all places ( _ ~~except the ones where death waits and the corpses pile high as mountains~~_ )- it passes by no measure Fai has ever known, in no pattern he has ever seen, different to the passage of moment to moment in all the worlds he has seen so far in a way that he cannot define.

His head is still hurting. There is something a little frightening in that.

“We’re stopping,” says Not-Kurogane suddenly, and Fai startles so badly he nearly falls over a half-buried log, boots slipping suddenly across the leafy loam of the forest floor. He manages half a breath, begins to speak and cannot finish a question, but the man he has followed all this way -if they have even moved at all, each and every tree around them both uncannily strange and disturbingly familiar in ways that turn the stomach- speaks right over the top of him before he can make more than a rasping sound.

“There is water nearby- a river.” He tips his dark head, listening for something that Fai cannot hear, one hand held up for silence. “We will stop and rest for a while- I am hungry. You should be too,” he adds, as an afterthought, glancing over the slope of one broad shoulder and catching Fai’s attention with those hot eyes.

Hunger punches Fai in the belly, an abrupt and clawing ache that threatens to buckle his knees in its shocking suddenness; he opens his mouth, and this time does manage to make a sound, though it is wordless and startled, a completely involuntary voice to the need that cripples him where before there was merely indifference. It _hurts_ , this hunger, in ways that terrify him; hurts in a way he has not felt for ( _ ~~centuries~~_ ) a very long time, and his breath comes tight as it takes him over. His thoughts splinter, sharp glittering fragments he cannot hold, and Fai hunches over to clasp his knees with shaking hands as the ground spins in dizzy, dark-flecked circles around his feet.

“I said you would be hungry,” says Not-Kurogane, almost kindly. Almost kindly, for there is nothing like gentleness in the hand that lands heavy on his shoulder, broad palm and callused fingers gripping rough as heat bleeds through the cloth that wraps his skin as though it were not there at all. “Come on, now. The river is not far.”

Fai straightens, gasps, whistles for air to fill his squeezing lungs. It does not come easy. He cannot speak, and the hand on his shoulder is his only anchoring point as his companion steers him slowly through the trees.

* * *

_the soil beneath your feet is wet and greedy, sucking at your boots in great grasping gulps of mud and loam; your steps stagger, clumsy limbs made heavy by the fear that courses through you in surging waves, pumped in place of blood by your stuttering heart. splintery branches lash your skin in whips and snarls, scratching hot lines across your face and arms, tangling in your hair and yanking cruelly as you crash through the undergrowth-_

_-but you have no time to be careful, no thought of anything but desperate flight, and you have so far to go (so very, very far) before you can even hope to stop. and so you run._

_you are chased, and so you run._

* * *

“You should not sleep so early in the day,” says the voice he knows better than he should admit, and Fai struggles to open his eyes.  _Asleep again? What is this?_ At his back, there is a tree, rough-barked and much the same as every tree he has seen so far in this damned forest, and his fingers find creases in the peeling, papery rind of its trunk as he claws his way into wakefulness, forcing his body upright. It feels like his brain is lurching in his skull, a second pulse beating sick and heavy in his temples; his mouth is as dry as death and tastes three times as foul.

A slow heat bleeds through his coat, just as the sunlight bleeds through the seams of his eyelashes, and he knows that it is daylight still; the smell of wood smoke and burning sap speak of a nearby fire built to cook a meal, and a tightness in his chest unfurls a little at the warmth coming from flames he can just barely hear pop and crackle.

Fai sits up, slowly, eyes finally open- and then stares. Stares some more, because he really can’t do anything else.

“I wondered if you were going to grow roots, you were out so long,” says Not-Kurogane, and the curious distance Fai heard in those words upon waking is explained by his being some dozen or so metres away, down below a small ledge that edges the river bank and thigh-deep in the water that drifts silently past. The river is glassy and dark, broken only in ripples that shatter around the movements of his limbs; tiny waves lick at dusky skin, free of all cloth that might obscure it and patterned with scars that Fai knows better than even that voice. He’d seen them born, in Yama, written into muscle and bone with the scrawling calligraphy of war and the cut of glancing blades; he’d cleaned and bandaged those wounds with his own two hands, watched as Kurogane tugged thread through his own flesh to stitch them closed -all but the wounds he could not reach, and for those Fai’s hands had been a shaking substitute- and did not flinch from the spearing pull of the needle. As a warrior, Kurogane had been unmatched by all but the General Yasha himself- but one man is only one man, and not an army, no matter how much damage he might bring to one; and no man is invulnerable. Cautious and armoured and terribly skilled, but only a man. And men bleed.

“You really do need to eat if you keep drifting off,” continues his only company, wading deeper; the water level rises to his hips in slow, creeping increments, dragging Fai’s gaze along with it. His head is pounding, a ringing in his ears- there is something here he does not understand, something so strange it masks itself as something simple and remains unseen. “Wait there- I will not be long.”

“What,” says Fai, and licks his cracked lips. His voice is a sandpaper scrawl, his mind racing- or trying to, his thoughts sluggish and slow for all he urges them to go faster, faster. “What are you doing?” _More importantly, why are you doing it naked?_

There is no answer for a moment, this man who is not the Kurogane he knows for all that he looks like him -for all that he bears his scars and shape and searing gaze ( _ ~~and how can that be, how, how~~_ )- turning as suddenly still as any statue carved. Fai’s lips part in preparation to speak, but to say what, he does not know- he has no words to break this silence as it falls. Not-Kurogane breathes slow and even, each breath measured and inaudible; if not for the slow, smooth movement of his chest, Fai would not think he drew breath at all.

One arm rises, silky-slow, the motion a perfection of sinew and tendon; one hand opens, fingers fanning gracefully wide, control in every aspect of their reach. No tremble passes through this man, and the surface of the water below him smoothes into a mirror of his stationary form. Those eyes ( _hot eyes, hot, and did they always burn so_) close, mouth drawing thin and brow creasing in concentration. All is still.

And then: _movement_.

Down comes that arm, that hand, spearing towards the water with speed that the human eye can barely follow; the surface of the river shatters in soft wet spangles, each ripple smaller and delicate than Fai had thought possible, and the grin on the face that does not belong to the man wearing it is nothing short of triumphant. Not-Kurogane snaps his wrist up and through the water again, and when his hand withdraws cleanly, it is with a fat fish snared in strong fingers. Again, again, that same hand comes down, each time coming up full; barely a minute or two must have passed in the time it takes for three wriggling fish to be held thrashing in the free hand this man holds out to his side as he strikes at the surface of the water, and by the time Not-Kurogane strides back to shore he holds six fish altogether, big hands fisted about their frantically flapping tails.

“Fishing,” is the only thing he says, an answer to a question Fai almost forgot he asked.

“I don’t like fish,” is what Fai manages eventually, after a long moment of staring stupidly at the figure standing across from him, dripping wet and distracting; he swallows with more nerves than a man his age should possess ( _ ~~and sometimes he forgets that he is so, so old~~_ ) and forces his gaze upwards- though that is not much better, for now there is nothing to stop those eyes catching his own, and somehow that is worse. His head is still pounding.

“You don’t have to like it,” comes the rumble, Not-Kurogane snorting in disgust and shaking his head to rain droplets of river water all over the place. Fat drops of water scatter from his nose, his chin, run down the blades of his cheekbones in trickling lines to patter down onto his collarbones and slide to his chest. “You just have to eat it.”

Fai winces and closes his eyes, mostly to disguise the fact he cannot stop himself from following the path of those trailing droplets down to catch on scar tissue and the planes of solid muscle alike, but also because if it had to be anything he was going to be forced to eat -and by the most bull-headed, stubborn bastard he has ever had the misfortune to meet, no less- of course it had to be fish. Of course. “I’m not going to get out of this, am I?”

There’s no response to that, and Fai doesn’t really expect one either, but the hush -broken only by the crackling fire, the rustling of clothing, and the quiet movement of a man accustomed to stealth- is unnerving the longer it goes on; it’s on the tip of his tongue to speak, to say something, anything really, just so long as it ends the silence that weighs so heavily on his mind. Kurogane had been... had been _quiet_ in Yama, for all that he was the only one of the two of them able to communicate with Yasha’s army. Fai had spent night after night watching the moon cast its rising glow in dark eyes that gave away nothing- or at least nothing that he could understand. For a long time he had thought himself the only one with secrets in his past; it had been humbling and terrifying both to learn so quickly that there were depths to this man that he had assumed to be so shallow ( _blood-thirsty and brash and stupidly brave; a watcher and a warrior and the witch’s pawn beneath all of it_ ) as to be barely anything more than a threat to watch for, and less than a person in his own right.

( _but_ _what did it matter who he was, when he might still meet his death by these hands? what did it matter if they might be shaking at the thought of making such an end to this man_ _~~he could not help but care for~~ when he had known that this was what he was meant for, from the very start?) ~~~~_

His thoughts are going places he does not care to follow, and now is not the time for this; better distraction than self-recrimination, and never mind that this journey has been an exercise in both so far. Fai opens his eyes.

“I thought you would’ve had your fill of dreaming the day away,” says his companion, cross-legged by the fire; orange light gilds the wetness of his hair, his skin, trails greedy fingers through the shadows pooling in the arc of his collarbone, flowing down the breadth of his chest -still bare, and honestly what was the point in shedding clothes to keep them dry if he didn’t intend to wear them once more- as he leans back and wipes wet hands on his rough trews, handprints blotting dark cloth even darker- and since when was it nearly _nightfall_ , dusk curling through the trees around them and creeping up so suddenly it makes Fai’s head spin.

There is something wrong with the way time flows here, something wrong with the way he experiences time and its passage, something wrong with the hurt beating against the inside of his skull- and Fai does not know why or how, only that it is and it is not something he can fix. And now that he knows this, knows that there is something wrong with the world that surrounds him, it is _frightening_.

“Eat,” says Not-Kurogane, startling Fai from his ( _fear_ ) thoughts, and the rumble of his voice demands compliance. The smell of piscine grease dripping to sizzle on the fire makes Fai shudder, his belly flopping in disgust ( _and since when were those fish gutted, spitted, cooked; since when did he close his eyes for long enough for such to take place_ ) but he is so _hungry_ , hungrier than he can remember ever being, just enough to push past his crawling unease- and before he can refuse he is already reaching for the spitted fish. Their skin splits beneath his teeth, scales flaking across his tongue; their meat is too hot, almost scalding and utterly flavourless- but gods above and below, he has never tasted anything so _delicious_ as in this moment.

Not-Kurogane says nothing, and watches him eat, and Fai is too hungry for anything else.

“And you?” he mumbles eventually, when he is down to his fourth fish and the cramping in his belly has eased enough for speech. Fai has to spit out the delicate bones that pierce the next mouthful of seared flesh before he can finish his sentence. “You were hungry before.”

“I still am,” says the man who watches him take each bite, chin cupped in the palm of his hand. Water drips steadily from his hair, tracing thin wet channels down the lines of his face. “I’ve only had a little, but it is enough for now.” Droplets scatter from his eyelashes when he blinks, shattering on the bridge of a nose, the arch of a cheekbone and the swell of a lip, the tip of his tongue flicking out to dash the latter away. “I will have more later.”

Fai bites down suddenly on a splinter of bone, needle-sharp and piercing the inside of his cheek to fill his mouth with blood. The taste washes wet across his tongue, hot salty-copper, and when he swallows it is like poison trickling down the back of his throat. “When?” he asks, and this feeling that has gripped him from the start, the one that he cannot name, slips across his mind like the flash of scales through water.

“Later,” says Not-Kurogane simply, and will not say a word more.

* * *

_you are slower than you need to be, sick and slow and heavy, and so close are your steps pursued- but you keep running, faster than your aching bones can bear. you have no space or time for failure, and death snaps its teeth at your heels; there is no mercy here (never was, not for you) and you hold no hope that even should your life be spent, cursed bloody coin spilling through your fingers, it will bring a cease to agony. Gehenna awaits in the dark, and you are not ready for hell yet. you struggle onward._

_behind you, too close now, ( ~~not close enough, oh let this blow be the killing one~~ ) and the beast is racing nearer. hooves or claws or the slither of scales on rotting earth; a roar, a hiss, a shriek of flesh tearing- you make no sense of the sound that chills your blood, fists your viscera in its icy grip, and so you push it back. you do not have time for this. you cannot rest yet. you say his name, the one you are running for; say their names, the ones you are running from (please not this, not this ache that would be love, not now, not ever; let it not be so, let them not be so dear and keep them out of your breaking heart), pant them in every gasping breath that whistles up your throat._

_sweat or blood or tears; your eyes are stinging._

_the beast is running, and you are dreaming, and ahead of you, there is... light?_

* * *

Fai takes the first step only half-awake, catching himself mid-stumble as his eyes open and the world swims into focus. Before him, Not-Kurogane turns back a little, just enough for him to see that face and the expression it does not wear, just enough for him to realise he was been walking while sleeping and the man who faces him is not surprised at all to see it. And that disturbs him.

The next step Fai takes crunches with crisp leaf-litter, twigs snapping under the soles of his boots with a splintering, wet crack that stills him mid-stride. The air tastes like decay, mouldering and thick, filling his lungs when he takes a shuddering breath. “We’re not heading towards that town, are we,” he says finally. It’s not a question, and to his credit the man ( _ ~~man?~~_ ) that Fai has followed thus far makes no attempt at demurring or denial- though the confirmation in a single sweep of those cutting eyes across his face still lurches in his stomach. Adrenaline surges in his blood, and his heart pounds panicked fists against his ribcage as the dread that heralds confrontation claws up his throat. If this is a challenge, he does not know if he can rises to it- but failure is no option, either. “You’ve been leading me deeper into the woods this whole time.”

The man he has mistaken for Kurogane -time and time again, despite the ( _terrifying_ ) evidence to the contrary- inclines his head shallowly. “It took you long enough to notice.” And it did, time and distance and the quality of light all so terrifyingly wrong that Fai cannot grasp his bearings; cannot find true north or the horizon where the sun rises,  _if_  it rises, if this not some twisted cycle of day and night with no clear demarcation between them. But that is no excuse for this failure.

Fai swallows. “I’m not thinking clearly,” is what he says, slowly, head pounding; each word feels like climbing some sheer cliff, struggling upwards through willpower alone and not daring to look down at the fall below. Not-Kurogane inclines his head once more. “I keep- I’m falling asleep. A lot. More than I should.” There is no emotion in that face as Fai speaks, still and solemn and blank- the  _passion_  that burns so bright beneath Kurogane’s skin in everything he does is entirely absent, and this,  _this_  is the final, fatal blow to Fai’s tattered hopes. “I don’t get tired,” explains Fai softly, “not really. I don’t need to rest like most would, not when I’ve my...”

The realisation comes like a blow, a fist to the belly he can crumple around, and so he does. His eyes widen, his heart throbs in his chest, air whistling through his teeth in a panic of desperately drawn breath as he doubles over, knees weak and vision fluttering in a sick, quaking blur. “My  _magic_ ,” chokes Fai, and is immediately, violently ill; bile splatters the rotting leaves and mulch that cakes the forest floor in virulent yellow splashes. He retches, gasping and  _drowning_  in the shock that crashes over his head and threatens to pull him down into the dark.

His head aches,  _aches_ , a splitting agony that splinters across the inside of his skull in branches of lightning-strike hurt, searing all sense from him; the hollowness of his chest -as though he had been cracked open and exposed and something important scooped out to leave him empty- makes terrible sense when paired with the hungry gleam in red eyes that  _glow_  in ways the eyes of men do not, and-

And there is a hand in his hair, a fist, pulling his face up at an angle that spears pain down his spine, and those eyes are not merely glowing now, no; now they are _burning_ and demanding and forceful as they take his gaze and hold it with frightening ease, bending his will beneath that fierce gaze. He cannot look away, he-  _he_   _cannot look away_.

This man is not Kurogane- is not even _a man_. It never was.

“Not your magic,” is what the beast before him says, and the shock pours through him like a thunderclap. In that voice there are so many terrible sounds ( _hooves and howling and the drowning roar of water closing over the top of his head, pulling him down into the irresistible undertow_ ) that Fai can barely make sense of the words that fall from that mouth, lips splitting open far wider than any man’s should to leave nothing but gleaming teeth and the dark hollow behind them. “I don’t want your  _magic_ , human,” the beast repeats, pulling him up by the hand knotted in his hair and shaking him just a little- easily, far too easily; he is nothing in the face of that strength. A stinging heat flashes through Fai’s scalp as his hair starts to part from it, his feet leaving the ground, and in desperation he grabs at the big hand that holds him in its iron grip to ease what pain he can.

His fingers squeeze tight, nails digging in, but the creature barely notices; as if all the force Fai can bring to bear were nothing of any consequence. “If mere magic were all I wanted,” comes the rumble, some darkling brontide that chases a shudder through Fai’s aching bones, “then I would simply eat your eyes out of your skull and be done with you.”

Fresh bile surges up Fai’s throat, floods beneath his tongue. “Then what-?” he chokes, because his magic is the only thing he has, and he has never been wanted for anything else; the power that glows in his eyes and writhes beneath his skin ( _that keeps him alive when all he loves are dead, that brings despair to every life he touches with it_ ) is his only worth. “If not my magic, then w-what use am I to you?”

The beast’s hand -the one with Kurogane’s scar branded in the palm, and how sickening to see those wounds worn as a mere skin over this creature’s diablerie- rises to curl around his chin, bracketing his throat, and Fai is held helpless by those fingers grasping his skull. There is no mercy in hot eyes, no humanity, no pity; Fai looks into those burning depths and finds only hunger. “Your curses,” the beast murmurs, and that this is Kurogane’s voice speaking so, corrupted and made silken-soft by the monster that takes his form ( _ ~~the bait and the snare~~_ ) makes the horror of that statement so much worse. “I want your curses, little mageling; the despair that rides you, the death that comes in your wake for those that follow you. I would peel away every shred of darkness that shrouds your fragile bones and devour it all.”

Slowly, almost gently, the beast lowers him down; his feet touch mouldering earth, and Fai gasps for air that comes too thin, scrabbling at the hand around his throat as his knees buckle from under him, tearing him from that fierce grip and dumping him down to sprawl in a mess of trembling limbs. “My curses,” he moans, bending over to choke the words, “my _curses!_ There is more than _one_?”

Of course there is. Of course there is. Of course he is more than merely doomed, of course he is wholly and totally _damned_ , marked with more than just the sins he was born into, more than just the sum of every corpse his birth had caused.

( _Fai_ )

Just the deaths of two worlds entire is not enough for him to shoulder; there must be _more_ , more blood to wade through and stain him scarlet- a fucking ocean of it, enough to drown every one he dares to love ( _don’t let them close don’t let them see don’t let them die because of you_ ), enough to leave him an island adrift that can be reached by no saviour. _Of course_. Fai shudders for air, and the forest wrings with a sudden shriek as it bursts from his chest, wracked and aching. _“Am I nothing else but curses?”_ The scream rings hollow, soars through dead and empty air and comes to nothing. Still shuddering, Fai bites out a sob; stinging tears squeeze hot from his eyes to burn down his face, dripping heavily to the soil below.

“Yes,” says Not-Kurogane, and the words are as a kick to the gut.

Fai bends over, bends double, hands clawing at his knees.

“But you can still be saved.”

 Slowly, Fai raises his head.

“You’re lying,” he whispers, voice too weak to rise to a shout. He wants to shout, wants to scream and wail and curse the creature out for the liar it is; he can never be saved. Never, _never_ \- if he could be than why would he have had to make the choice ( _ ~~watch Fai make the choice for him~~_ ~~)~~ to kill his own brother to be even halfway free? The urge to dash his fists bloody against those familiar, frightening features seizes Fai with sudden, furious intensity, and the hands he raises to tangle in his own hair tremble with rage. “ _You’re lying._ ”

The beast shakes its head dismissively. “My kind cannot.” It crouches low, the movement of that body borrowing another’s understated grace, and the hand that takes Fai by the chin is steady and firm. “Even if I could, I would not- I have no need to lie when I can simply make you forget.” And _that_ explains why Fai has trouble remembering how to simply breathe, let alone anything else that has passed in the beast’s company these past few days.

“You have a choice,” says the creature, rough voice smoothed to a soft burr. “Go to your demise screaming and broken, torn asunder by your own damnation as it destroys those you care for and closes the world around you to a crushing cage- or come willingly to my arms, to let me take that which was given to you in spite.” The hand curled around Fai’s chin unfurls, cupping the side of his face with terrible tenderness -the kind he can never deserve- and even the mimicry of Kurogane’s callused palm is perfect. Fai shudders at the spark that touch sends through his blood, and his heart leaps in spite of himself. “It will be a good death, a peaceful death; you will die free, your responsibilities lifted- your curses _gone_. All you need do is sleep. You will dream, and you will not wake.”

And Fai is tired, Fai is tempted- he has come so far upon the commands of others ( _his king, dreaming beneath the deepest enchantment he could weave with broken heart and shaking hands; his master, the cruel conspirator who tears the worlds asunder for the sake of a wish; his own treacherous heart, beating still after the murder that it drove him to commit_ ) and it wears him down with every shaking step. He has come far -so very, very _far_ , through time and space and pain- but he has so much farther to go before he can hope to rest.

“I can’t.” His voice is quiet, broken and it does not echo. “I can’t.”

The beast is still. “Not now, perhaps,” it says quietly. Rough, hot fingertips stroke down the side of Fai’s face, that touch excruciatingly gentle. “But you will.” It stands, unfolding with the fluid ease of a predator prowling, and that calm is more unnerving than any violence would be. “You’ve a day or more to travel before we reach my lair, and it’s there I’ll have your curses, one way or another.” That gaze, hot and fierce and so completely removed from anything resembling humanity, tracks across his face to hold his own. “You still have time to change your mind.”

_But I don’t. I never did- and you won’t lift my curses from my back. I cannot let you._ He cannot fall. He cannot fail. It might mean his death -it _will_ mean his death, sooner or later- but not before he has forced his weary body to the tasks laid out before him. To accept the peace the beast offers is no choice he can make, not now; not ever. “I will not,” says Fai simply. There is no force in his words, but there does not need to be.

The creature eyes him for a long time, silence stretched and aching. “You will not remember this,” says Not-Kurogane suddenly, and his voice is  _heavy_ , sinking into Fai’s bones with leaden surety; even seated and still the world spins about him. It is as though a hand presses down on his chest, sinking through his ribs to squeeze about his heart. “You will not remember this,” the beast repeats, and Fai knows this to be true, the urge to struggle against that compulsion dying inside before it can even start. He cannot fight it; to look in those eyes is to know this, as though he always known this- and he has seen enough of death ( _seen_ _so very, very much_ ) to know of inevitability.  

The world flickers to black.

“What?” says Fai, still gasping; he wipes the back of his mouth with his sleeve and swallows downs another retch with a hiccupping gulp. It’s hard to pry his eyes open, the ground still swimming beneath him, but he manages just barely; blots the chill sweat from his brow with his forehead against his sleeve as he fights to stay steady enough to stand once more. His throat is burning, scraped raw. His head is still pounding. 

“The fish did not agree with you, I think,” says the man ( _ ~~beast!~~_ ) that is not Kurogane calmly, looking down on him from where he stands. It- it hurts to meet his eyes, and so Fai does not, keeps his gaze low to his legs, splayed out slack before him. “Here.” There is a water-skin offered, appearing in his narrow field of vision; Fai all but snatches it from his fingers, suckles greedily at the spout and squeezes the leather bag, forcing down the water that floods his mouth, no matter how warm it is, no matter how bitter the taste.

“I’ve never been a fan, no,” agrees Fai, still spluttering a little as the wetness of each guzzling mouthful wars with the breath he draws frantically, still not looking up. He is afraid -no, he is _terrified_ \- and he does not know  _why_ , and that in itself is enough to frighten him more. “But then, there doesn’t seem much else alive in these woods to eat- they really are deserted,” and he is babbling now, words pouring from his lips in some tide not easily stemmed, and that is only the fear speaking, nothing more. Surely.

Not-Kurogane says nothing.

“So tell me,” pants Fai, and his right hand tightens in the cloth of his trousers, fabric straining in a white-knuckled grip, “what brings you to these woods?”

It’s not really a question and he expects no answer- if there is anything he knows of Kurogane, it is his reticence to answer questions, and if this man ( _ ~~beast!!~~_ ) is in any way like the one he has left behind ( _ ~~oh mercy please let them be far away from here, please, please let him keep them safe~~_ ) then this is a trait they must share.

“Hunting.” It is an answer he did not expect to get, and that one word holds a weight of meaning that would take years to unravel; Fai’s brow knots, the pounding of his head skimming across the surface of his thoughts like a stone skipped over a lake, each ripple a shallow pain that laps at the inside of his skull. He would ask more, but his chest is too tight for words and something suggests ( _instincts screaming danger, danger, danger_) that any explanation would not be safe to hear.

“Stand up, if you can,” says Not-Kurogane brusquely, and the hand that claps his shoulder feels like a brand through his clothes, sweat breaking under that touch for all that layers of itching cloth separate skin. “You’ve a long way to go before you can rest.” He pulls upwards, fingers like claws; Fai is dragged upright on shaking legs and feels his stomach churn at how little effort is put into that action. This man ( _ ~~beast!~~_ ) could break him so easily.

_So I do_ , and Fai could not say where that thought -drowsy, too-truthful for even his own comfort- came from. “Lead on,” he mumbles thickly, and against the sky the treetops reel in dizzying arcs he must close his eyes against the sight of.

* * *

_this is a light you know, and so you run towards it; even so far away with that small glow all snarled and twisted by the gloom of the forest around you the warmth that sighs from its presence is a benediction on your frayed nerves, much like the smile of the one it belongs to. she is young, and kind, and entirely too innocent -all things you are not- and though you know her true purpose (why she was made, why her feathers were stolen and she was cast upon the waves of fate) you also know that she is someone you would protect. you do not know if you will be successful -none have survived that you have ever tried to save- but you will try._

_for the sake of her smile, you will try._

_but you are not alone, and as you run -towards and away, caught between the beast and the brightness- you are chased, and the distance between you and your pursuer lessens with every shaking step. there is no room in you for fear, not now; you have too many dark things to achieve to be frightened of what you must do -what you must become- though you feel it all the same, squeezing in your chest and speeding the flutter of your heart. if you die now, your every action will be for naught, your choices rendered to dust; you cannot fall yet, and so you cannot fail._

_(you have been offered death, offered peace- but you have too far to go before you can sleep)_

_and for all that this light you chase throws shadows, deep and long and terrible -and for all that the creature that would have you for prey walks among them- it is that light which is your answer, which is your escape\- if you can only grasp it, even in your hands so bloody and weak, then surely you will have the strength you need._ _if you can only borrow just a sliver of her brightness, just a breath of the blessing that rides her with the gods’ own luck, then maybe, maybe, you can survive, unlucky wretch that you are._

_you reach, your hand grasping for that which you have no right to touch. you are close now; so close, your arm straining, your fingers stretching. but the beast is closer._

_it is now or never. you cannot fall (you have no time to fail) and so you leap- and as you close that last, desperate distance, your doom howls behind you._

* * *

This time he wakes with no gasp, no spoken word, nothing to drag him from the dark- only the pale light that bleeds against the edges of his eyelashes, soft and white and alien. There is comfort in this light, the absence of the shadows he has come to know so well, and there is  _warmth_ on his skin where it touches, glowing all the way down to his bones. For a long moment, Fai does not wish to wake; wishes, instead, to stay in this fragile peace, where he has no need to be anything than what he truly is- old and tired and alone and unloved, yes, but warming inside out from the sweet and simple hope that everything will be alright, if only he would try. It is a strange feeling, and not something of his own, but it is not an unwelcome one; hope, no matter who it comes from, is not something he can refuse.

_(not yet, not yet; he is not yet ready to lie down and die)_

But he cannot linger here; there are paths he must walk, no matter how far they wind into the darkness, and he has a long way to go still. He opens his eyes.

There are trees, a nightmare of them, twisted and black; there is the sky circled by the woods, bleached-bone and naked beneath the shreds of shrouding clouds, and above him stands a man. A man that takes the shape of one he knows, a man that takes that shape in the hopes of rendering him helpless to resist- as he has done for some time and only now Fai sees, the veil torn from his eyes at the very last, cast aside so that the light may flood in. As far as assumptions go, it’s a fairly good one, but it is still, at heart, flawed; he has never once seen Kurogane’s face and wanted to _yield_ , not in any way at all.

Fai sighs, slowly; feels the breath leave his lungs and trickle through his teeth. His sore head has eased, no longer a pounding ache inside his skull. In his hand -closed, fisted, pressed tight against his breast to shield the heart that beats beneath- he holds something dear, something warm and kind. Something that it not truly his to hold. Something that has broken the glamour woven over him by the creature that has been leading him through the woods these few days past. _I am sorry, Sakura-chan. I promise you I will return this as soon as I can._ It doesn’t matter how he found it, only that he can give it back, and for that he needs to find his way out of this forest- and away from the one that would cause him harm.

Planting his free hand into decomposing leaf mulch and sloughed off bark, Fai pushes himself up creakily, flakes of dirt and dead leaves falling from his coat as he forces himself upright. His knees crackle and pop as he gets his feet under him, and Not-Kurogane watches with indifference as Fai finally stands, joints protesting wearily and his head spinning just a little as his blood reasserts its liquid equilibrium. There is magic here, in the air and in the earth, magic he can finally see now he is not blinded, and the core of this magic -strange and awful and so very ancient, older than the woods that twist around its black heart- is the man before him, burning eyes the only light in the mask of the face he wears.

“These woods are your hunting grounds,” begins Fai. It’s not a question. A dark head inclines shallowly, and those bright eyes never leave his face throughout. “You never did say,” Fai continues, slowly, his voice catching like a hook in his throat, “what, exactly, you were hunting.” The man before him does not blink, does not _breathe_ at this accusation; is not truly a man, then, not by any measure, and Fai’s suspicions are correct. Fear scrambles up his throat with claws of hot wire to choke his voice to silence -trembling terrified on the tip of his tongue, in his every panting breath- as white teeth gleam beneath lips that peel back in a silent grin.

“No,” says Not-Kurogane, says the _beast_ , and beneath that borrowed skin there is a something almost kind, and terrible in that almost-kindness. “But why tell the rabbit of the snare?”

Horror crashes down like a wave, sudden and drowning; even expected, that terrible weight is all but enough to sweep Fai away. “What _are_ you?” the whisper escapes without his urging, a shiver from his lips that steals his breath, and Fai steps back unconsciously ( _unwillingly; there is no time for cowardice here_ ) the ground lurching unsteady beneath his feet. The sky reels dizzily above, Sakura’s feather a branding heat clasped in trembling fingers, a light against the weight of darkness that tightens around him like a noose about his neck. The creature’s eyes are so very red.

“Many things, mageling,” says the beast eventually, pleasantly enough- but its voice is wrong ( _wrong!_ ) and the expression on that face does not suit the man it belongs to. The first step taken towards Fai is the beginning of a stalk, and the corners of that slow-rising smile crack like lightning through cloudy sky, exposing empty darkness where dusky skin peels away in dusty flakes. _Shape-shifter,_ whispers a tiny voice at the back of his mind, thin and frightened. _Skin-stealer, breath-taker, dream-eater. Monster. _There is nothing of Kurogane at all in that face now, only whatever terrible thing that has stolen it. “Hungry, mostly. Impatient, too- I have been gracious, and you give me defiance in return.”

Between his fingers, Sakura’s feather bleeds warmth, soaking into the bones of Fai’s shaking hand; in his chest glows something righteous, twisting hot and angry in the cage of his ribs. “Gracious?” he hisses, and the word cracks like a whip between his teeth. “You trapped me!”

“And gave you water when you were thirsty, gave you warmth when you were cold, and lastly gave you hunger when you would refuse sustenance,” is the flat, dispassionate counter. “You creatures are tiny, fragile things; most likely you would not have survived had I not found you in the first place, alone and adrift as you were. You slept and in your sleep you walked in death’s shadow, _human_ ,” comes the sudden snarl, the beast angry at last, and any resemblance to Kurogane is gone from that voice now- blown away like smoke as those features crack beneath the strain. “I dragged you back into the life you are so eager to escape.”

A hand lashes out, and Fai starts- but not quickly enough; rough fingers, thick and strong and gripping like iron, take him by the scruff of his coat and do not let go. He is eye to eye with what would devour him, and every breath tastes of sulphur. “If you think so little of what you have, then why should you get to keep it?” demands the beast.

“Because it is mine,” whispers Fai, around the tightness of his tongue and the tears that drip down the back of his throat, unshed and acidic. “It is not much, what I have left, but I will spend it dearly.” He yanks himself out of that grasp; cloth tears a little as he twists, dropping down to his feet and backing up as much as he can until he reaches the barren edges of this clearing, back to the trees and gaze fixed on the creature before him. It’s been a while since Fai has had to fight like this ( _alone_ ) but he will fight all the same.

“For someone so eager to die,” murmurs the beast lowly, “you are awfully troublesome.” It cuts far, far too close to the bone, those words with that face; Fai forces his lips into a sneer, forces his shaking hands into fists and feels the warmth of Sakura’s feather wrap the inside of his closed palm. He edges backwards still, slowly, just slow enough not to be noticed. He squeezes the fragment of bright, beautiful soul trapped between his hands tighter. Courage, for just a little longer. That’s all he asks.

He needs a distraction. “Why that face?” He manages, smile forced and teeth bared. “Why not your own? Are you so ugly I could not bear to see what you really are, beneath that borrowed skin?” He almost sings the words, high and false and sweet, his skin crawling all the while; he does not want to know what manner of creature lies beneath the face it stole. But the beast merely laughs, a splintering growl that could strip flesh from bone with its sharp edges and Fai’s gut twists painfully. He takes a step back, and another and another, as many as he can before that creature takes his gaze and holds it once again.

“It was the first one I saw, mageling; this face, this form seared into your dreaming mind. He’s all you think about,” the beast purrs, that velvet sound unspooling over that cutting tone and blunting serrated edges where they saw against Fai’s nerves. “You know all the planes of this body,” murmurs the beast, and those big hands rise up, palms out, fingers spread. “All its secret shapes and scars,” and here the wound on Kurogane’s palm is bared where it lies scored into his psyche; a brand of magic into mortal flesh which ripples through time to remain long past its healing. This scar is a blessing now, the desperate wish of another to save the life that bore this hurt. “I had no choice but to take this form- your yearning was such that you would see me as nothing else.”

“Do not lie to me, not wearing his face.” It’s a command, even if his voice shakes a little, and Not-Kurogane tilts its head at the speaking of it, bird-like and unfairly innocent even as the sclera of those eyes bleeds to a burning, bloody scarlet, that dark pin-pricked pupil shrinking down to nothing at all beneath that wash of hot red. The lines around that mouth crackle deeper, new schisms of stolen flesh breaking open with every tiny movement, and leaves crunch and pop beneath Fai’s feet as he reaches the outer fringe of the twisted trees.

“You ask me why?” This a threatening rumble, deep, far deeper than any human range- Fai feels it shake in his ribs, throbbing down into his bones and humming through his teeth. Shadows bleed down that face, racing dark caverns down the slope of cheek beneath those blazing eyes, licking flames shed like tears that burn the skin they touch. “You care for the man that bears this shape, and you fear your own heart for how much you care- you ache for him so much it seemed the perfect choice that you should die by these hands. I think you could wish for nothing more.”

_I have only one wish, and it is not for him._ “And maybe I will,” counters Fai lightly, forcing upbeat airiness into his voice even as his heart grows so heavy under the weight of that promise. “But not today!”

He’s good at running, when it comes down to it; good at flight from that which would destroy him, and even though it follows him ( _always, everywhere, across time and space and world upon world_ ) it hasn’t caught him yet. So Fai turns tail to run, darting between the trees as a ringing roar breaks out behind him and the wings of his coat flare wide; Fai runs, as his breath comes in short panicked flutters and his blood sings adrenaline through his veins to speed his aching heart. Trees whip his face with needle-like branches, scoring lines of blood to the surface- but he does not stop. Leaf litter sloughs in rotting drifts beneath his boots, threatening to spill him across the forest floor- but he does not slow. Fai runs, and does not dare look back, and far too close behind him, the beast chases.

* * *

_you are running, and this is no dream._

_it’s time to **wake up**_

* * *

He wakes screaming, and he is not alone. The shriek bursts from his chest, magic burning up his throat ( _no can’t don’t keep it in keep it close don’t let it out_ ) and ringing helpless in his voice as he lashes out in a panicked rage, arm swinging wide. He is awake and he is not alone and he does not know where he is and ( _~~there is something coming for him and~~ _ ) he is  _terrified_ -

-but a hand catches his wrist, grabs it tight with terrible strength; his bones grind under the force of that hold and the shock of it shudders down his arm and spears him right between the eyes. “ _Enough_ ,” snarls a dark voice, and a slap catches him across the cheek, hard enough to turn his whole head and set him to reeling. His eyes slam open in shock, mouth hanging open, and the pain of the blow is a stinging heat that sears into his flesh and yanks him from the claws of his dreaming and into the too-bright world beyond.

Fai gasps, choking on his own breath; his vision swims back from clouded white to a bleary haze as he blinks away stinging tears, eyes rolling; he sees skeletal trees, wretched branches reaching up to claw against the cloudy sky, and fear cramps in his belly at the thought that he is still _lost_ -

“Don’t make me hit you again,” says the same voice as before, the one belonging to that fierce grip, and when he can think beyond the shock of it Fai wrenches himself free from that grasp, huddling his arm back against his chest and cradling the warmth caught within his closed fist. His wrist aches, bone-deep. He’ll have bruises soon enough.

“Where,” rasps Fai, and Kurogane’s face -the real one, oh mercy, _the real one_ \- blurs into focus. “Where is this?”

And if he is desperate to know, Kurogane does not seem to care, but grabs him by the chin with rough fingers to hold him still. “Some forest world somewhere. There’s no people around.” Those piercing eyes catch his own, sharp and demanding, and Fai shudders under the weight of Kurogane’s gaze as it tracks across his face. He is looking for something, and in that search Fai feels exposed. “You’ve been asleep for three days, ever since we landed,” says Kurogane bluntly, looking away at last.

“What?” whispers Fai.

“Kurogane-san is right- as soon as we landed, you were unconscious,” and that is Syaoran’s voice, worried and soft; Fai startles, turning his head as best he can -Kurogane’s hand slipping free, warm fingers grazing the side of his neck and he is _not thinking about that_ \- to see him crouched in the hollow of a huge tree, young face pinched and tight with strain. “We don’t know what happened- your eyes just rolled back in your head and you dropped like a stone. If Kurogane-san hadn’t caught you, you could’ve hurt yourself when you fell.”

“We were so worried, Fai-san,” says the young woman beside him- oh, _Sakura_ , sweet girl, clutching Mokona in her arms and watching Fai with green eyes glassy with unshed tears. “We’ve been walking around in circles for days and you were asleep, and no matter what we did we couldn’t seem to wake you!” Mokona, wriggling free of Sakura’s grip, bounces across the clearing in three huge bounds, glancing off Kurogane’s shoulder and to land firmly on Fai’s chest; a small, warm weight that nuzzles into the folds of his coat.

“There’s magic here, old magic that Mokona doesn’t understand,” comes the hushed murmur, and Fai raises his free hand to graze softly over trembling ears. “Mokona doesn’t know this magic and doesn’t know how to free us.”

“To _free_ us?”

“We’re trapped.” Kurogane is already standing, moving across the small clearing. “We’ve been walking in circles- doesn’t matter which path we take, we just end up back here. There’s something interfering with the manjuu, and we can’t leave because of it.” He doesn’t turn back to Fai as his voice hardens. “We need what you know about magic to get us out of here- about damn time you woke up.” The glancing fall of his gaze cuts back across all of them then, his face unreadable and hard. “There’s something in the trees, and it’s getting closer. I’m going to see what it is. _Don’t_ fall asleep again.” With that, he is gone- dark cloak melting into the shadows beyond the trees and his every step soundless.

“Kurogane-san was worried too,” says Sakura quietly. “He carried you the whole time, and barely said a word. We thought you were _dying_ , Fai-san.”

If he were a better man, he’d comfort her now; call her over and stroke her hair gently to soothe her, ease her fears with reassurances and truth. But Fai has been too close to death to be anything but blithe -and the truth is too ugly to share- so what he does instead is smile, stomach churning with the shock of her statement even as he chuckles weakly. “You can’t get rid of me that easily, Sakura-chan; you’re stuck with me yet.” The warmth trapped in his closed fist flutters urgently, a reminder.

“I found something for you, princess,” he murmurs, and unfurls his fingers. Light blooms out across his chest, across Mokona’s trembling form, across the trees in a wash of gentle illumination. Sakura’s eyes widen, tears startled from her trembling eyelashes and dashing down across her cheeks, breathing out a sigh as the fragments of her soul call to each other. Beside her, Syaoran startles, wrapping a protective arm around her thin shoulders as the shine in her eyes slips into a daze of magic.

Mokona leaps upon his chest. “ _Mekyo-!!_ Fai found a feather- but how? Where? Mokona couldn’t feel anything at all!” It has long been Fai’s theory that his own power interferes with Mokona’s magical perception; that the magic that glows in his eyes blinds not just he himself, but those around him -and if his suspicions are correct in this regard, then surely his curse ( _ ~~curses curses more than one stained across his wretched soul~~_) has much the same effect- but he says nothing of the sort, just ruffles his free hand through soft fur. Mokona’s ears lift, earring jingling gently in the slow, soft breeze that rises, Sakura’s feather lifting from his palm to drift across the clearing and home to the soul it was cast from.

There is a beauty in this reunion, but it is not the kind his heavy heart can bear right now. Fai looks away.

When Sakura is sleeping at last, resting in Syaoran’s arms with her head pillowed softly on his shoulder, Fai manages to stand on shaking legs. Mokona, clearly still worried, clings to his shirt with tiny, tenacious paws, climbing upwards as he rises to nest beneath the drift of his hair, small breaths tickling Fai’s ear. “Mokona is staying with Fai,” is the sweetly stubborn declaration. “Fai will stay awake this time, or Mokona will use Secret Technique #77: Wake Up Dance and make sure of it!”

For the first time in what could be centuries, Fai laughs. It feels like sunlight, pouring out through the cracks in his old bones. “Thank you, Mokona-chan.” Syaoran chuckles a little, his smile tired but warm, and his arms tighten gently around his sleeping princess. Even the sky overhead feels lighter, less heavy; as though the smothering weight of uncertainty that bears down on them all has shifted slightly, dark clouds rippling where this warm wind breezes through them. It is only a small easement of their oppression, but Fai will take it and greedily so.

Behind him, there is the crack of twigs under boot, the rustle of leaves beneath a heavy footfall. “Oh!” says Syaoran, sitting up straighter, shoulders drawing back and his young face tightening in an attempt at seriousness. “Kurogane-san! Welcome back- you’ll never believe it, but Fai-san had one of Sakura-hime’s feathers with him, and... Kurogane-san?”

Terror bolts down Fai’s spine in a lightning arc, a crackle that shakes his limbs and draws his breath into a panicking stutter. Never once has he heard Kurogane’s steps fall so heavily, and he is not fool enough to think they would start now.

“A feather?” says a voice, a dark voice, a voice which has ensnared him these past three days dreaming. “Hm, that fragment of soul that freed you from my snare and broke my glamour.” Fai does not want to turn around. Fai does not want to turn around- but he does, slow and creaking, mouth parting on a shaking exhale. Not-Kurogane smiles, and it shows too many teeth. “I do not feel it now, mageling.”

“Kurogane?” whimpers Mokona, ears drooping low and tiny body a-tremble, huddling beneath Fai’s chin. Even as that name whispers through the silence they all know it to be a lie.

“Only on the outside, little thing.” Red eyes, too bright and terrifying for it, fall across Fai’s face.

“Mokona-chan, go to Syaoran-kun,” says Fai steadily. He does not take his eyes from the beast in front of him as he raises a hand, cupping Mokona’s small frame in against his palm, tiny paws grasping his thumb. “Syaoran-kun, you keep Sakura-chan safe.”

“I have no interest in your companions,” comes the declaration, that dark voice flat and almost toneless; Fai tosses Mokona behind him in a gentle underhanded throw without looking away, and grits his teeth as the creature’s grin widens, deep cracks splitting open across that face and baring the seething dark beneath. “They will not be harmed unless they interfere.” Red bleeds into white sclera, pupils shrinking as they did once before, and thick, burning droplets of flame scorch down the creature’s cheeks and patter steaming to the shape of the body below to eat through cloth. “None of them would be so rich a meal as you, after all.”

If Fai is frightened, he is also _angry_ , and it is that ire that washes through him in a tide of adrenal rage. To die at this creature’s hands is not something he can bear, but to die in front of the children is _unforgiveable_. “Don’t come any closer,” he growls, rougher than he knew himself capable of. “I won’t go so easy to my death.” Not while he has something to protect, not while he is the only thing that stands between those he cares for; he has lost too many lives and failed too many loved ones to just lie down and die.

( _not now, not yet;_ _not until past sins can be made right_ )

The creature that wears Kurogane’s image -ill-fitting, sickening in its abuse of that familiar face- tilts its head thoughtfully. “I have offered you peace, and you refuse me,” and the beast’s voice is a murmur, slow and threatening as it steps forward just once; Fai’s body slides easily into a war-like stance, one he can only pretend he has no skill for, and he shudders in disgust. He finds no joy in violence, but that does not mean he is no good at it. “Nothing about your death will be _easy_ , mageling.”

The sudden, shocking movement blurs with terrible speed towards him, faster than the human eye can see- but Fai is no novice to rely only on sight, all his senses shrieking as he flows around the strike and locks his arms about the attacking limb with a sickening _crack!_ of breaking bone. Mokona cries out, high and thin, but he does not stop ( _cannot stop, cannot hope to stop, not now, not ever_ ) twisting with all his might; the beast’s arm -strong and thickly muscled, like the man its shape was copied from- wrenches from the joint with a crunching pop to hang limply at its side.

But the beast is not disarmed, not by any means- steely fingers grab for his throat and squeeze about it, lifting him from his feet with frightening ease. Magic screams beneath his skin as the beast chokes him -a prickling heat that begs to be let loose- and Fai gasps for air in wheezing gulps, though the pain does not stop him as he lashes out with both legs, driving his booted feet into the flat of a stomach with all the force he can bring to bear. It isn’t enough to free him wholly, that tight grip only slackening a little, but he tears himself away, careless for the raking scrape of those fingers scoring across his flesh and the blood that burns beneath torn skin.

“Fai-san!”

“Don’t you dare,” he grates out, tears blurring in his eyes; he coughs just once, bile surging up his raw throat. “You can’t help me Syaoran-kun- this is my fight. Take Sakura-chan and Mokona-chan and go!” He means it too- three lives to protect are nothing but a liability and while the beast seems content with his death, for whatever reason ( _whatever sick satisfaction that can be gained from devouring ~~your curses curses the creature wants your doom~~ his wretched excuse for a soul_) he will not risk those in his care on the whim of a monster.

“Sentiment,” spits the beast, mouth tearing wide under the strain of so many sharp teeth; facsimiled cloth and copied flesh sloughs down in rotting strips as the darkling mess of writhing foulness bursts its borrowed body at the seams. The thing he faces does not look like Kurogane anymore, not at all. A hand, splitting before his eyes into a multi-limbed monstrosity, reaches for him, and Fai dodges a stunning blow, rolling across the mulchy ground in a desperate dive. The earth erupts in his wake in great furrows of torn dirt and tossed leaf-litter, a blinding mess he can barely see through-

-and when the shine of something bright and terrible flashes through that veil of soil, it is the gleam of Souhi as she slices towards a bared neck and sinks home with a shuddering _shhnkk-!!_

_Kurogane!_

“I just can’t,” snarls Kurogane, _the true one_ , dark face twisted in a fierce scowl, “leave you alone,” those powerful arms shuddering with the strain of the blow as he drives his sword deep into shadowy flesh, “for a fucking _minute_ , can I?” The length of Souhi’s gleaming blade is mired in rotting muck, and the beast roars in fury as Kurogane twists the steel enough that black blood slicks her edge. “You always get yourself into a mess when I’m not around,” grunts Kurogane, wrenching at the hilt with stunning force. He plants one boot on the slope of what would have been his mirrored back to yank it free with a slick, sucking _schlikkk_ as the beast howls in furious pain. “Starting to think you’re doing it on purpose, mage.”

In spite of himself, in spite of everything he knows will come to pass ( _in spite of the death he will deal with these hands_ ) Fai grins in desperate relief.

“Sorry, Kuro-chan,” he gasps, half-breathless with fear and just a touch of mad delight, “couldn’t wait any longer- had to start without you.”

And the look on Kurogane’s face suggests a cutting comeback, but it never gets spoken, not as the beast thrashes about in rage, tossing his burden clean across the clearing. Syaoran shouts, but Kurogane twists mid-fall to land in a cat-like crouch, Souhi held wide and clear as black blood oozes thick and wet from her cutting edge. He is unharmed, not even scratched- but he is angry, and something in Fai _sings_ to know that this anger is on his behalf. “What the fuck did you get yourself into?” mutters Kurogane. “Tell me, is there even a good reason this thing wants to kill you?”

“Who knows?” says Fai airily, because some things -some terrible, awful things- are too dark and complicated to explain. But then the beast screams, a ringing howl that bludgeons at the ears and shakes the ribs, flooding ice through the blood so that anything that could be said is drowned in the rush of it. Syaoran calls out -Fai can see his lips moving across the clearing, his face pale and wide with terror, Sakura limp in his trembling arms- but the sound cannot reach them, and whatever warning he shouts is lost.

“ _Go!_ ” roars Kurogane, as fiercely as he can; his chest swells and the word whips across the trees like a crack of thunder, something that Fai can feel more than hear- and in the moment between that sound and Fai’s next dragging breath, the beast turns on him.

Slowly, it rises- form and flesh and any semblance of a man falling away like a skin shed, and the darkness that takes shape in its place hurts the eye to look on, this creature strange and awful from every angle. Horns and fur and monstrous curving limbs; a gaping maw with rows of teeth, serrated and shining in the thin, dusty light that splits through the clouds- and eyes that _burn_ , blistered with flame and scorching where they fall. A hoof as thick as a tree trunk pounds the ground, crushing soil and leaves beneath its weighty fall, and Fai feels the shudder race up his legs to flutter hollow in his belly as the beast holds him in its hungry gaze.

Silence rings across the clearing, steam rising in dreamy spirals from heaving flanks and escaping in wisps between jagged teeth. In Fai’s chest, his heart trembles.

“I would have taken you quietly, gently, in your dreams,” comes the rumble, a low-rolling brontide that aches in his bones. “I would have eased your passage, mageling, made it sweet and soft; given you everything you dare not ask for- but I have no patience left.” Tears crackle down dark cheeks, red and orange and brightly burning to catch on lips peeled back from teeth like knives. “I care not how you fight me. I will drink your doom to the bitter dregs.” Those gruesome jaws part, beastly tongue lolling- and Fai’s feet have taken root, holding him fast as the end of his life approaches on hoof and claw. _Not like this, not like this. Not now, not when there is so far left to go, so much I still haven’t done-_

_“The hell you will!”_ A stone, easily the size of a man’s fist, smashes into the arch of a curving horn with a hollow _thwack!_ and bounces off the creature’s skull. Fai whips his head around so fast his neck cracks, and there is Kurogane, standing and sneering as he hefts another stone. “I reserved the right to kill that skinny bastard myself long before you showed up,” he growls. “You can just crawl back under whatever filthy rock you came from!” The beast looms over him, a mountain of dark fur and steaming muscle, but Kurogane stares right back, teeth bared and gory sword a threatening arc in his fist.

“I’ve changed my mind,” murmurs the beast, in a voice like boulders rolling through a lake. “I’m going to kill _you_ first.”

The blow comes without warning, a great limb slamming down where Kurogane stands- and a shout dies in Fai’s throat as he leaps without thought, throwing himself hard against the back of the creature and grabbing great fistfuls of its slick fur. Dust and leaves and dirt blow over the forest floor in a shockwave that shakes the trees, rumbles the earth beneath them in a quaking shudder, and his ears ring with the power of it. His hands are shaking, his heart a throbbing weight in his throat, and he sobs something incoherent and hurt as he claws his way up that sloping spine to the wicked curves of lancing horns. If Kurogane has fallen, if the children are undefended ( _ ~~if there is no chance his betrayal might be stopped~~_ ) then he does not know what he will do-

The beast roars, the sound a tide Fai can drown in, pulled into and under the curl of despair. Darkness flickers before his eyes, a hot ache that prickles beneath his skin, and copper washes across his tongue; his teeth sink into his own flesh, his every breath coming short and sharp, and in his chest Fai feels something split open. His decision falls like a hammer blow. If Kurogane is dead, then the beast will die. If it’s his magic the beast wants, then it can take his curse ( _ ~~curses~~_ ) too and be damned all the more for it. If death comes to claim him, then he won’t be going alone.

The scream tears through his throat like a knife, jagged and burning as it rips right down to his core, and deep inside Fai finds that scar of _wrong_ , of _other_ , of _fear_ that he has borne since before he can remember. He is so old and he is so scared and that feeds the darkness inside him all the more, a sick thing that twists in his soul and poisons all his intentions. There is no life he has ever saved that he cared about, no death he has ever prevented with his unclean hands- and if this is another corpse to leave behind him, then at least now, _now_ he can have revenge.

“You want it!” he snarls, crawling up the ( _ ~~tower~~_ ) back of the beast, clawing against ( _ ~~stone~~_ ) its back with shaking hands ( _ ~~fingers bloody to the bone~~_ ), digging into fur that gives beneath his grip. “Then take it! Take it all!”

The beast howls in greedy delight, grasping for the filth that seethes beneath his magic, that disgusting taint that bleeds through every wisp of power that lights up his soul- and the sky reels in drunken rolls of cloud and dark and pale wintery light as a clawed hand reaches back and pulls him from the slope he clings to, twisted knotty fingers squeezing about his limp frame. But flesh is only flesh and bone only bone; Fai has been hurt before -so much deeper than this, right down to his bloody core- so that even the crack of his ribs fracturing is only a shallow pain, something he can push aside and let drift away.

Something finds the corners of his darkness, sinks in teeth and drinks it down with great thirst; claws pry along the sealed edges of his soul, searching for the deeper vein of blackness just beneath. Fai shudders just once, breath stuttering shallow, and gives it up. It spills through him in some great and rushing flood that would sweep everything away: this place, this hurt, the death he trails behind him ( _the death that lies before him_ ) and in that drowning space he feels himself smile.

( _the tower white the sky black the marks of your hands so dark and red and Fai screaming screaming screaming._ choose _says the man_ you must choose. you or the other one _._ only one of you can leave this place so choose _and so you choose ~~save Fai let Fai be the one who is saved~~ and from above you the blood the snow Fai falling falling  falling_ remember you are my pawn ~~until your wish is granted until your second curse unfolds remember~~ _and it is your choice that brings death your every breath brings despair to those around you wretched evil ~~twice-damned~~ cursed-_)

It is a black smile, bleak and broken and vicious in its brokenness; it is the kind of smile that snaps shut like jaws closing, chokes tight like a snare to cut and bind. He has always been a trap, right from the very start. Always will be. This moment is no different.

He closes his eyes.                                                                                                                                        

* * *

_this is no dream and you are not alone._

_inside, your emptiness yawns wide. many have died for you, because of you; more will die still. your despair is a hungry thing, eating away at your core in chipping cracking bites- but you are living still. and if you are to succeed in your aim, if you are to do what you are commanded -if you are to spend this life most dearly and with that desperate coin buy back the life of another- then you must live for just a little longer. you cannot die here, not now, not yet._

_what hunts you is greedy, yes, but your doom is voracious, deep and devouring all that falls before its path. a curse that can swallow whole a country, a people, a world entire and not be satiated in the least will not chip a tooth on a mere beast, no matter how large and vicious it thinks itself._

_so let it come. let it try, and let it fall; let it feed your curse. it matters not that it struggles, for there is nothing in you close to mercy that you could spare besides. it matters only that it dies quickly, without fuss; drowns quietly in the darkness it was fool enough to drink, sinks beneath the tide and leaves no ripples to mark its fall._

_and so it does. you are alone again._

_you are so tired. so very tired. you have come so far. but you have further yet to go, and you cannot rest._

_not yet._

* * *

It’s the sunlight that wakes him at last, yellow and thin, each stray beam carrying a heat he has not felt in days. It falls on his face like water, trickles slow across his skin and down the slope of his throat, pooling in all the places his skin is bare.  Beneath his cheek there is something damp and cloying; wet leaves, and beneath that, the rich scent of earth. Close by, there is sound: half-pleading words, sweet and gentle; the sound of someone breathing harshly, struggling beneath a heavy load; the near-silence of one not accustomed to it, a bright spirit dampened by fear and murmuring anxiously- and, lastly, the complete absence of the voice he knows far too well, knows better than even half a year alone together could account for.

_Kurogane_ , thinks Fai, and is too hollow to feel anything, even despair. His eyes open.

When they focus, he sees: Sakura, awake if slightly dazed, following the lead of Syaoran beside her, Mokona perched upon her shoulder; Syaoran, struggling to push at something dark and huge and heavily-furred, young arms shaking and his feet digging up great swathes of mulchy litter as his efforts are repulsed. It takes a little while for these images to make sense, for his tired thoughts to swim sluggishly towards understanding -his head is not sore, exactly, but tender in a way that suggests a hurt only just healed- but when he does, when Fai _understands_ , he almost upends himself completely in his desperation to stand upright.

He staggers, legs unsteady; the world spins about his head in a blurring halo -the sky blue before his startled eyes for the first time in days, colour bleeding through the fuzzy cracks between the clouds- but he stands, and just in time to see Mokona bounce from Sakura’s shoulder and come bounding over to him. “Fai! Fai is awake!”

He catches the small furry body that ricochets towards him easily, even squinting through tired eyes, but his feet are moving, as fast as they are capable- because Syaoran is struggling with the body of the beast, a massive sprawling wreck upon the ground, grabbing fistfuls of greasy fur as he heaves at a limb whose dimensions beggar belief. Sakura, too, is pushing, her thin arms shaking; she sways where she stands but she does not stop, and if their wounded princess can fight so fiercely then Fai himself can do no less.

“Fai-san!” shouts Syaoran, except he is breathless enough that it is mostly a wheeze, “Please, help- we need to move this _now!_ ”

He does not need to be asked. The ground below the beast is disturbed in great loamy swathes, leaf-litter tossed and earth gouged, slick with rotting gore that blackens where it has fallen, and the geometry of the beast’s dead body ( _for it is dead, devoured, gone; whatever dark soul held in that disturbed shell consumed completely ~~and by his own curses no less~~_ ) with limbs sprawled across upturned trees whose roots curl skyward matches where Kurogane had fallen. Even if he is surely dead, even if he is surely crushed beneath the weight of the creature collapsed atop him, Fai must try. He must.

His own movements stutter between intention and action, dizzy head reeling as Fai finds himself across the clearing faster than thought; he tastes the death in the air as he shoulders into the creature’s body, shoving into blood-stained fur with all the might he can bring to bear, Mokona bouncing desperately around the three of them as together they push, push, _push_.

_Harder, stronger. You can do better than this. He would do better than this, if it were you- harder! Push harder!_ Sweat breaks out on Fai’s face, breath huffing heavy and ragged; Sakura is panting in short, puffing gasps as her face reddens but she does not stop, will not stop, and Syaoran beside her is straining with all the strength he has in his young body, up to the elbow in dark fur and head hanging low as he heaves. Mokona’s tiny feet hammer against the body of the beast as each bounding movement bounces off the ground and against it, again and again, trying to lend even a small weight to their efforts- and it is with this sight burned into his mind that Fai groans, a deep-voiced shudder that rolls up from his gut and forces itself out between his gritted teeth. He shoves as hard as he can, and again, even harder than that; his back is burning, muscles seizing in his shoulders and aching down his spine- but pain is something he can bear and to stand by as yet another dies is not.

Something shifts. Syaoran cries out in shock, and beneath their hands -pushing, pushing- there is _movement_.

Slowly, too slowly, they gain traction; muscle, barely stiffening in the rigor of death starts to give at last beneath that final push- and beneath them comes _another_ push from underneath that staggering weight, impossible, struggling and surreal as hope surges up with the barest of indication that just maybe this battle is not pointless at all. “Kurogane-san,” gasps Sakura, and it sounds like she can barely believe it, but _yes_ , it is, it can be no-one else, and with the thought that for _once_ his wish might be granted ( _please, oh please, just this once, please_) Fai gives everything he has, everything he didn’t know he had inside him and squares himself for one last shove-

-and the arm of the beast comes toppling over with a meaty _ffwhump!!_ that rattles the earth beneath them.

For a moment, the dust and dirt and leaves eclipse everything, all of them coughing and spluttering as it blows out like smoke and swirls across the clearing to veil the trees. But it clears quickly, and even if his mouth is still thick with the taste of it, Fai surges forward without a care, tears standing out in his itching eyes, and as he stumbles into the crater that massive limb has left a dark shape coalesces into someone familiar and terribly dear.

( _he can admit it, now; this loss too hard to bear to think of lying, even in a near-miss such as this one_ )

Sakura is the one that reaches him first, scrambling down the dirt in a slide of upturned earth and clattering rocks; she splatters through what could be blood -and Fai will never tell her what stains her shoes, never, never- and falls to her knees in the muck, reaching out with the trailing sleeve of her coat to wipe grime and filth from the face of the man lying prone before her. Kurogane coughs at her touch, broad chest rattling with the sound; dirt and crumbling leaf litter and what might have even been fur huffs out on his choked breath. His eyes are closed, face scrunched in pain -and Fai is not surprised, not when he can see the bruises already blooming on every inch of skin exposed by torn and tattered clothes- but he is _alive_ , even if the groan that issues from his throat suggests perhaps death would have been easier to bear.

Fai doesn’t believe in miracles. He can’t- the span of his whole wretched life is evidence enough against their existence. But surely this comes close.

Mokona squeals, bouncing in unabashed delight; a tiny blur of dirt-stained fur springing joyfully off Syaoran’s head as he too skids down into the crater, and Fai would join him but for the wobbling of his own legs, legs that cut out beneath him and dump him on the filthy ground with a grunt of shock. Fai sucks in a gasping breath. His hands are shaking, and his heart, his heart- _oh_. There are no words.

Sakura scrubs at Kurogane’s face with determination, rubbing her sleeve -the finest fabric they could buy in the last world, now made coarse by grit and dirt- across and around his mouth, eyes, nose; Kurogane splutters in weak indignation, but he cannot move to protest- and that is another fear that Fai cannot bear, that they have saved this man only to doom him to another degradation of form, left him betrayed and not merely battered, but a large hand rises in a slow tremble to swat her attentions gently away, boots digging into the soil as Kurogane struggles to get his bearings, and the last gasp of Fai’s dread whooshes out between his teeth with his next breath.

“Enough,” grunts Kurogane. His voice is barely a rasp, a creaking scrape of sound. “’m fine.” Red eyes blink blearily open, rolling and unfocused. “Kid? You there?”

“Yes,” gasps Syaoran, unabashedly teary-eyed, his whole face crumpling.

“Tell me,” mutters Kurogane, sounding weary. His eyes close again. “Tell me the wizard’s alive.”

“I’m here,” says Fai, too exhausted to say anything else. He wants to lie down and sleep for a thousand years; he wants to never sleep again. “I’m here.”

“Mokona is alive and Sakura is alive and Syaoran and Fai and Kurogane! Everybody survived! We’re okay!” comes the excited shout and Mokona bounces off Syaoran again, tears scattering even with that brisk, bright movement; all the fear in that tiny body has to go somewhere, after it has been built up so high and collapsed under its own weight. And they’re not okay, not really; they’re alone in the woods in the middle of a deserted world, next to the decomposing body of some fey beast that saw fit to toy with them so easily for no reason at all. They are battered and bruised and battle-worn, tired beyond measure, and sleep no longer a safe haven. But they are not broken, and for now, that will have to be enough.

Groaning like a man half-dead, Kurogane plants one hand -his sword-hand, empty now, Souhi a gleaming spike erupting from the dead flesh of the beast not a yard away- in the muck beneath him and allows Sakura of all people to sling his other arm over her shoulder, heaving himself upright with the dregs of his strength. Fai can see him trembling, even from the other side of the crater. Kurogane is crusted with blood and filth and dirt, face scrubbed as clean as Sakura could make it -she murmurs something too soft to hear as she bears him up, coping better than Fai would have expected under the weight of one heavy arm- and Kurogane’s eyes force themselves open once more.

It is not chance that sees them fall to Fai’s face.

_You and I will have words later_ , say those eyes, in much the same wordless way Fai can feel almost anything Kurogane says to him, _I want an answer from you_ , and it is a blow to the gut to know that he has no explanation he can truly, honestly give. Why him? Why his magic, and at the heart of his magic, his curse? Why the attacking beast that none of them could predict or prevent? Why the choices he fears to make? These are the questions that fester in his belly, only more to add to the many, many others he sees in that gaze. He cannot answer, not now, not ever. Too much is at stake. But he cannot dodge forever.

“Let’s get off this world,” says Kurogane, looking straight at Fai. He does not look away. Mokona cheers and Sakura smiles; Syaoran babbles a firm agreement, wiping tears from his face with a bloody sleeve. Weakly, Fai nods.

He is still so tired.

**Author's Note:**

> The wish I wrote this for was: where either Kurogane or Fai are stranded alone in a world and encounter an AU counterpart of the other, bonus points for incorporating mythological elements and for characters gaining insight into each other.
> 
> (As is obvious, this did not turn out exactly how I had planned...)
> 
> The creature Fai encounters is loosely based upon a phouka (also known as a pooka, puca or a puck); a mostly-benevolent shapeshifter from Irish mythology that has ties to the Wild Hunt. Phouka are most commonly seen as black beasts known to take the shape of men or hounds or horses or goats (or a horrible amalgamation of all of the above), and have burning, red eyes that are visible in the dark. They are in some cases attracted to dark magic or curses. Phouka are generally kind, in a gruff sort of way; if you manage to help one enough to earn its gratitude, expect to be rewarded richly. Conversely, they can turn dark and destructive with little provocation, especially under the influence of the Wild Hunt. God help you if you manage to get on the wrong side of one.
> 
> I have taken a few liberties with the phouka and its abilities -particularly the mind-control elements and dream manipulation- because really, why not. It's a faerie, one of the old kind, and those faeries are not the kind you want to run into in a dark wood.
> 
> Common opinion and a re-read of the English publication of the manga suggests that Fai is aware of the first of his curses that FWR placed on him, though not its exact details (due to mental manipulation from Ashura-ou), but not aware of his second curse, at least until the moment it unfolds (as per FWR's mental manipulation). Poor guy has so many holes in his memory, it's no wonder he spends most of this fic dazed and confused.


End file.
